


Higher Further Faster

by CapturetheFinnick



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Air Force, Backstory, Closeted Character, F/F, First Meetings, Military
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-09 18:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18922618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapturetheFinnick/pseuds/CapturetheFinnick
Summary: The only thing Carol knows is that she wants out, out of her small town, out of her old life, out from under her parents judgemental stares, that and she wants nothing more than to fly. Maria is her small solace in a world that is seemingly built against her, and the pair of them grow closer.~aka Carol's backstory in the military





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm trash for captain marvel and wanted to write all of Carol's flashbacks but gay (as intended) ages ago but you know life. So I think I'm going to continue with this, writing little excerpts from Carol's past that we saw in the film. (oh also i canny think of a better title so) Hope you enjoy!

She felt the heat at the nape of her neck. She’d thought about this for years. About the dry heat of the desert, the sun beating down, the scratch of a uniform, the men stood behind her. But now, looking up at those four ropes she felt as if she’d swum far, far out to sea, like she couldn’t quite see the shore anymore. She’d wanted to join the air force forever. She’d always longed for the skies, to be up there, to look at what was below, for everything to become a colony of small ants, insignificant, unimportant, easily squashed. She wanted to be far from the forced smiles and hushed arguments, from the slight kick under the table to remind her of her _manners, an_ d from the scratch of the dress collar against her neck. Piloting was _not for her,_ her mother had told her the one time she’d brought it up, folding perfectly sown dresses into piles, the radio tinkering in the background. She was to be prim and proper, she was to wear the same dresses as her mother, a perfect carbon copy. She was to say please and thank you, and she was to marry the nice boy from down the street, move into a pastel coloured house, create some more carbon copies, fold her own dresses. But Carol hadn’t done any of that. Hadn’t wanted to do that. She was a salmon swimming up-stream, far too visible for the likes of her parents, with their plain white cod and matching peas.

Which is how she’d found herself, what little possessions she actually owned stuffed in her never-used suitcase, perched at her feet at a busy train station. She was off to the city. The city that sounded exciting, sounded bright and new and teeming with possibilities, that seemed like an oasis of tall buildings, a never-ending city. The city that seemed marvellous, wondrous, glowing. What she found instead was a small shared room, a shitty job that paid her less than minimum wage, and cockroaches. Way too many cockroaches. But it gave her space, it gave her time to finish high school and it let her get her hands on that all-important application. It let her grow wings, let her fly, far, far away.

She stared up at the ropes, fluttering gently in the breeze. She heard a smattering of laughter behind her. Her mother had been right about one thing, the air force was a boy’s club, through and through, she was one among many. Or two. The other woman shot her a smile of solidarity, it lighting up her entire face as if she hadn’t even noticed the men goading her, trying to knock her down. It gave her the strength she needed. She stared those goddamn ropes in their non-existent eyes and she gave it everything she had.  

~

Carol was itching to get in a plane. And not in a simulation, not co-piloting, or observing a group flight, she was desperate to get her hands on the wheel, to see the wide-open sky in front of her.

She leant against the warehouse, the sun beating down, half her jumpsuit tied around her waist, her sunglasses perched on top of her head, staring longingly at the planes, all lined up in a row.

“They never let women fly,” came a voice from behind her.

It was the same woman from training, her jacket thrown over her shoulder. She joined Carol, pulling her shades over her eyes.

“Then why are you here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she grinned, and Carol couldn’t help but grin back, an echo, “I want to fly, it’s all I ever wanted, big military family, you?”

“I guess escapism,” Carol said, shocked at her own honesty,

“What you running from?”

“A lot of things,”

She grinned again, and Carol swore the air around her glowed just a little, its own tiny mirage.

“Maria,” she said, sticking out her hand,

“Carol,”

~

They became thick as thieves after that. Like a pair of shadows, say one word about either them and you’d get a fist from them both. Tied with invisible string, an unspoken pact that wove the two of them together, clutching at their hips. They shared a bunk, being the only two women in their division, shared and swapped stories, their very different childhoods; Carol as an only child in a well-to-do prim and proper neighbourhood, living in the shadow of the imagined child her parents wanted, Maria in a large military family, the only girl of five. But both of them had unworn dresses beside the skeletons in their closets.

Maria would help Carol after hours, sneaking out across the field and climbing those ropes until her hands were red raw, bound by Maria as the sun began to rise. She fell time after time, her legs a great canvas for blue and black splodges, as if she’d got caught up in some kind of paint war. But she grew stronger. Every time she fell she got right back up again, time after time, gritting her teeth, that same look of steely determination in her eyes.

Until one day she could stand there, in front of the line of jeering boys, head high. Until she could jump from rope to rope perfectly never slipping, watching the smiles slowly slipping from their smug faces.

~

There was a bar not too far off site. Close enough to walk back, far enough that they got to shake off the boys’ club for a little while. Leave them playing their cards and swigging their beer and endlessly discussing girls they probably never even shagged. _Panchos._ Their shining white heaven, complete with a shitty, spluttering juke box and barrels of beer that had been sat there way too long. But it was quiet, the owner knew them, slipped them free whiskey, and on Saturday nights they held a karaoke. And they loved it. They’d sing their hearts out to whatever song they wanted, and sometimes Carol would catch a glimpse of Maria, smiling wide, and wonder where she’d been her whole life, couldn’t imagine her life before her.

Two peas in a pod.

Sometimes those feelings came with a stab in her stomach. She’d been there before. School dances that she went alone to, inevitably staring at a girl across the room, sleepovers with best friends, kisses for _spin the bottle, t_ hat meant _nothing_ (so why did they set her heart alight?). Sometimes she sat up late at night, trying not to think about Maria, trying not to think about the way her entire face lit up when she smiled, about the way she looked in her uniform, about how she leaned against her at the end of a night out, sending sparks all the way up her body. _You can’t think those things._ She’d repeat to herself. _It’s wrong, it’s unnatural._ She was an outcast, an alien, Carol knew that much, she’d never seen anybody else like her. Never heard of it. She was all alone in the world. Sometimes by morning she’d convinced herself she’d made it all up, that it was a dream, something she’d concocted inside her brain to make her life more interesting, she’d reflected all her yearning for something romantic onto the person in front of her. She didn’t really feel that way. But then the dawn light would come through the window, and Maria would smile at her from the bunk opposite, and her heart would soar all over again.

~

“You know why they call it a cockpit don’t you Danvers?” David said, smirking at her with a look in his eye, grabbing his crotch, looking her dead in the eye.

He’d been chosen to fly again, the rest of them supposed to learn from his ever-glowing skill and grace. _He wasn’t even that good_. She suspected Lieutenant Rodgers knew this. In fact, every time she flew well he seemed to grow angrier at her, as if just her presence in front of him was infuriating, as if she could become the best in all the world, swim through miles of mud, walk through miles of snow, and he’d still be disappointed in her. She was facing an unclimbable wall. It was wearing her down.

She simply turned to David, holding two middle fingers out to him.

“Danvers,” came the shout, “no flying for you today, back to bunk,” the lieutenant said without even looking at her,

“That’s not fair,” she said evenly, trying desperately to keep that all-too-well-know Danvers rage out of her voice. Just existing as a woman in the air-force meant she was apparently already on thin ice.

He looked up from his clipboard, his eyes narrowing and filling with a fury Carol had only seen on a couple of occasions. Nobody talks back to the Lieutenant.

“Five hundred push-ups, now,”

A couple of the guys shifted uncomfortably in the line, as if they were aware of the unfairness of this, as if part of them itched to speak up, but stayed silent all the same. A condemning silence.

~

By the time the boys got back, she was still going, the flying had ended early and a huge storm had overtaken the skies, darkness swirling like a vortex. The rain was coming down heavy, weighing her uniform down, making it even harder to push herself back up again. But she was Carol Danvers. And Carol Danvers always got back up again.

“You can’t leave her out here,” she heard a voice distantly arguing. She looked up, the rain running down her face and off the bridge of her nose. _Maria._ She shot a smile in her direction, peering through the anger written all over her face.

“You want the same treatment?”

“She’ll catch her death,”

“She wouldn’t do if she were stronger.”

“Bullshit,” Maria cursed, spitting at the ground at his feet before moving to stand next to Carol.

Carol could see the flames flickering in his eyes even through the rain.

“Maria you don’t have to,”

“I do,”

“Danvers you move and I’ll be forced to send you home,”

Maria narrowed her eyes, dropping into a push-up position and starting her push-ups all whilst never taking her eyes of the lieutenant. An act of protest.

“You can’t do this sir,”

A voice from behind them.

One of the guys from their division. Carol didn’t remember his name. Fred or Jack or something; not the tallest, not the strongest but he’d offered Carol a sympathetic stare on occasion. A good guy. If such a thing still existed.

“Frank you stay in your line,”

“It’s out of order,” he said his voice a little stronger,

And Carol could see the lieutenant starting to waver, the rain growing thicker, turning his white vest see-through, his hair starting to drip water onto his face.

“This one time, Danvers, Rambeau,” he shouted, as he motioned for them to get up, “just this one time.”

He turned around, stalking off like a lion with wounded pride.

Frank offered Maria an arm up,

“Thank you,” she said, Frank pulling her up until their faces were nearly touching,

“It’s no problem,” he said,

And when Maria got back to their bunk, she flopped down on the bed with a sigh, not caring that her wet clothes were bleeding into the dry sheets below her. And Carol recognised that look, recognised that feeling from when she stayed up at night, trying to convince herself she was all sorts of crazy. Maria was lovestruck. She wasn’t expecting it to hurt quite so much,

~

She started to see Maria less and less, and when she did all she would do was lament over Frank. Their nightly chats had become centred on him, as if he were the sun upon which Maria’s axis had started to turn, as if she’d been blinded by this great white light. If anything it did Carol a favour. It meant that Maria was blind to the way her face fell, to the way she turned onto her side, to the way her whole body tensed. Maria was blind to Carol’s feelings, and Carol stayed an alien, clutching her pillow tight against her as if it were an asteroid and she had been flung right out into space, floating among all the debris. She was starting to feel like there was nothing for her on earth, no one corner of the world where she could exist as more than a half shadow.

She stood at the edge of the compound, tapping her foot against the dust and the rocks. Maria was late. They always met in this exact spot, the lights of Panchos calling from the distance, sparkling and promising a small moment of forgetting before the bright lights came back up again, and she was forced to chase an impossible dream. Or maybe two.

Fifteen minutes passed and Carol’s heart had never felt so heavy. She’d had one friend in the entire world and now she had no one but herself, the pact crumbling, running down her body like an avalanche and finding a home in the dust below.

That was when she saw then. Maria and Frank. Against the edge of the warehouse building, Kissing.

The earth dropped from below her and her knees wobbled. She stared up at the stars like it was her goddamn job and started to wish, really wish, that she could float up there forever, mix with the stardust, further away than ever before. That all below would become less than ants, would become completely invisible to the human eye, that maybe, just maybe, she’d feel at home among all that stardust.

She hurried back to the bunk, throwing herself under the covers and trying not to cry. Carol Danvers didn’t cry. Especially over girls who she had no business looking at like that, especially not over hopeless causes.

The door opened a crack and she dug her nails into the palm of her hand, focusing all her energy on lying completely still. She pretended to be asleep.

“Carol?”

She didn’t respond.

“Carol?” Maria whispered again.

Carol put her game face on, acted sleepy, rolled over.

“Sorry to wake you,” she said, sitting down on the bunk opposite, the biggest grin written across her face, “me and Frank, we kissed,” she said, not being able to help the giant grin that spiralled across her face. And Carol was almost glad she’d seen them, because if this was the way she’d found out, she wouldn’t have been able to keep her sleepy poker face, she’d have looked like she was hit by a truck. The game would have all been over, and Maria would have seen her true face, her alien face that she hid from all the world.

But as it was she said, “That’s great! I’m happy for you!” and she was no actress but apparently Maria was buying it because she leant back on the bed, a happy glow emanating from her, radiating through the whole room, swirling and dipping and gliding, alive with happiness. And she continued to talk until the moon was high in the sky, glaring at them and wishing for peace.

Panchos was never mentioned.

~

Work relationships were prohibited. And Carol wished that was her only problem. But it was Maria and Frank's only problem. And so she became chief lookout, she covered for them, lied for them, gave up her room and spent her evenings staring at the stars. She didn’t think she’d ever felt quite so hopeless. She’d been trained but she’d still only been given a low-down position, her dreams seemed as far away as those stars, and her old life was looming closer to her by the day. Maybe she would give up, let her mother set her up, become a receptionist and wait to be buried in her family’s plot at the cemetery, wait for no one to come lie flowers on her grave. She was being dramatic, but she allowed herself this moment, allowed herself to be swallowed by the night sky.

~

Then Wendy Lawson came along. And here was a woman, a woman in the air force! Her hands were full of opportunity and when she smiled her eyes crinkled at the edges, and she reeked of a mother Carol never really had. She signalled Carol and Maria from a line-up with a wink. Here was a woman who took no shit, who dismissed the lieutenant’s suggestions with a wave of her hand, who stood firm and somehow held power which had felt so distant just one day before. Opportunity had come knocking in a leather jacket and Carol had practically leapt at the chance.

Maria was in her life again, with a hand gesture and that great big bright smile, and they would joke around like old times, their jackets thrown over her shoulders.

She had her first taste of real freedom, her hand behind that wheel, the engine revving beneath her.

The boys will always be able to fly _higher_ than you.

She set off down the strip, feeling the power beneath her fingertips, Lawson like a ghost over her shoulder and Maria her grounding energy as ever, and sat closer to her than they had in a while, and she couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be.

They’ll always be able to fly _further_ than you.

The engine growled like an almighty bear and then they were in the air, and Carol’s heart leapt out of her chest. She was in the clouds, both literally and figuratively, and with every moment she felt herself further and further away from the past. She was _doing_ it. So fuck you, mom.

They’ll always be able to fly _faster_ than you.

Maria grinned at her from the passenger seat and Lawson gave her a nod, and she sped up, energy running through her veins seeming to ripple under her skin.

_Higher, further, faster, baby._

~

It didn’t take too long to become grounded. Her usual waiting spot called her to again, and once more Maria didn’t show up, leaving Carol all alone with her stars. She wasn’t in the bunk either, her perfectly made bed still untouched, the sheet tucked in at all four corners. She kept her lamp on for a while, trying to read her book but being distracted as ever by Maria. She had to be with Frank. There’s nowhere else she could be. Carol tried to ignore the way it made her skin crawl. She gave up, the moon was too high in the sky and her eyes were drowsy and by the time Maria crawled home she was already passed out, restlessly turning in her sleep.

~

“You went to Panchos without me?”

She didn’t mean for there to be so much anger in her voice. But she was tired and grouchy and fed up to her back teeth with being abandoned, forgotten with living in her corner of the earth that seemed determined to bite at her, that would turn around and whip her with the back of its tail. Hostile. Fed up with living like an alien being rejected by its host.

Maria looked up, her eyes narrowing.

“Why do you hate him so much?”

“It’s not about that,”

“Then what is it about?”

Silence feel between them, a great uncrossable ocean. Maria wanted her to say it out loud. Maria wanted her to confess her feelings from the dark and twisted place within, those feelings were poisoning her from the inside out, and she wanted her to just spill them out like they were nothing.

“It’s nothing,” she whispered, turning to leave, “I hope you had fun,”

“No,” Maria said, her voice rising just a little, “we’re going to discuss this and we’re going to discuss it now,”

Carol felt something inside her snap, she was tired and fed up and she lived inside herself so much, and goddamn it was so dark in there.

“No, we’re not,” she growled, “you go off and live your perfect little life, and leave me the fuck alone,”

She moved to slam the door, but Maria caught it behind her,

“I know how you feel, Carol,” her voice was quiet but it quivered with rage, and her eyes fixed directly on Carol’s. And they were cold.

Carol said nothing. She was frozen still, the darkness swirling and screaming inside of her, this black vortex which she could never let out. Her hostile environment already leered around her, and with the addition of the black vortex, she just might not survive it.

“I’m never going to feel that way, Carol.” Maria said, “I’m not _gay,”_

It was as if she’d aimed the knife at Carol’s chest and twisted it, all while laughing manically, all while staring at her with those cold eyes.

She fled just as the thunder began to cackle.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're back again! Think I'm gonna update this on wednesday's from now on so thanks for sticking around (I'm actually super busy from now on but hoping i can write them all now and slowly release them!) hope u enjoy!!

She did laps until she couldn’t feel her legs anymore. Rain dripped down her face, and her legs were numb from the rain, but her heart kept pounding and she couldn’t face going back to her bunk and seeing Maria. Or not seeing her. She didn’t know which was worse. That was what hurt the most. She kept expecting to look up, to see Maria, her face pressed against the fence, an apology fresh on her lips, one gaze and a hug and they could wrap it all up before the moon said its goodbyes. Alas, dawn was on the very tips of the horizon and she was still all alone, and she was soaked. She had to face the facts. Her entire body shivered in servitude to the night, and all the stars had disappeared, fog and light streaking the sky.

She felt hollow as she stood under the scalding hot water of the shower. It was either freezing cold or burning hot, and the pressure was never right. Carol didn’t even notice anymore, letting the water fizzle and bounce off of her skin.

“I’m not _gay,_ ”

She’d spat it like the word was poison in her mouth. And Carol presumed that’s what she was, poison. Clearly her swirling vortex had been let out, and now in Maria’s eyes she was no longer Carol, no longer her best friend but a crooked alien, all her skin stripped away.

~

Maria wouldn’t even look at her when they met with Dr Lawson. She put on a fake, plastered smile, not a hair out of place but she spoke only to Carol when she needed to, and despite being sat right next to her she felt a million miles away.

Her already hostile environment had grown claws and was determined to bite at her, great big teeth opening up from the ground below, ready to swallow her.

She didn’t have anywhere to go.

She swore when she’d accidentally grazed her hand against Maria’s she’d flinched. She gripped the steering wheel extra hard, and Maria clutched her hands together as if she’d just been touched by the black death itself, her expression unreadable, her eyes straight ahead, fixed and cold.

~

Lawson frowned at her, Maria already gone back inside, and Carol felt like she was under scrutiny, as if she’d come home past curfew, or forgotten to take the garbage out.

“You okay, Danvers?”

“Just fine,”

Lawson tilted her head as if she wasn’t convinced but shook it away.

“Don’t let them get you down, you’re a damn good pilot,”

And Carol offered her most convincing smile.

Somehow that problem wasn’t her biggest concern anymore. It wasn’t even top five.

~

She’d didn’t even have Panchos to look forward to anymore. She didn’t have her nightly chats. She had an old tinkling radio and a book she’d read a thousand times before. And she had her mind, her mind to constantly try and beat her down, to remind her that she wasn’t welcome, to whisper in her ear the way it had done constantly as she was growing up.

It felt silly to wish on the stars now. After all, what had they ever done for her?

~

Maria had started skipping meals. Carol scoured the dining hall for her, ignoring the jeering stares from her other colleagues, ignoring the pointed looks.  She definitely wasn’t there. It wasn’t like looking for a needle in a haystack, after all. Maria was one of the only black people in their division, and the only other woman. It should have been dead easy.

Was she this desperate to avoid her? Did she hate her that much?

Carol scoffed her food, barely tasting it as it slid down her throat, placing her tray in the kitchen and darting back to the bunk. She wasn’t there either. Just her radio and her book lay in wait for her, like many nights before. It was too foggy to see the stars.

~

Maria hadn’t slept in their bunk for three nights. Every night her bed lay unslept in, the sheet pulled perfectly to all four corners, the covers perfectly unrumpled. It was mocking her. It’s taunt perfection scowled at her night after night, and she longed to screw it all up, to throw pillows and sheets across the room like she used to when she was young and it was _all too much_ where her rage fell out of her like an overboiled pan, spilling and burning at the carpet underneath her feet. Now her rage was quiet, a silent stone sunk to the bottom of a pond at the bottom of the garden, distant and lonely.

Maria’s stuff slowly went missing, bit by bit. First her boots from the end of her bed, then her towel, her washbag, and finally the picture of her family that hung above her bed, six people smiling out, miles away from the stiff robotic nature of all of Carol’s family pictures, a hand clutching a little too hard onto her shoulder. Maria was disappearing piece by piece from her life, and Carol never saw her, she never ran in to her, apart from in Lawson’s planes, it was if she was a perfect spy, sneaking in the only fifteen minutes of the day Carol wasn’t there. Like two ships in the night constantly missing their course.

She had moved somewhere else.

She was sleeping somewhere. Probably with Frank.

Carol felt hollower than ever before, as if all her energy had drained into the bed below and now she was stuck, tied forever with the cotton sheets, forced forever to look at the stained ceiling.

~

Maria had disappeared quicker than usual after work, kicking up the dust behind her like a cloud, the dust settling around her in her wake as if she were never really there. And maybe she wasn’t. But Lawson arched her eyebrows and Carol sighed a sigh she could barely even hear, her legs hollow and wobbling as she followed her back to their bunk.

She took a deep breath outside their door, energy she wasn’t even aware she had left inside her, her boots weighing heavy on her feet.

Maria was curled up at the edge of the bed, her face pressed against the wall, and she was crying. Her uniform was still on, boots and all, and Carol stood perfectly still as if, if she didn’t move, Maria wouldn’t know she was there. As if she would be allowed to stay in her life for a few more seconds if she just didn’t say anything.

But she had to risk everything. She’d always had to risk everything.

“Maria?” she said softly, and she turned her head, tears streaming down her face and her eyes bloodshot and red, the crumple of her previously uncrumpled sheet printed onto her face like a map.

She didn’t say anything instead she just motioned to Carol and Carol knew exactly what to do. After all they were tied at the hip, even if that tie had rotted, had fallen to the ground, had found its home among the goddamn desert that covered them from every side, it could be rewoven amongst the ghost of its old remains. Once tied it could never be untied, an invisible thread forever.

And Carol lay next to Maria, curled her arms around her like an optimistic offer, and let her sob into her chest until her tears bled through the military-issued uniforms and onto her skin below, let her body shake against hers like a promise. And Carol might have been hollow, but Maria was over brimming with tears, and together they lay until the stars erupted into the sky once more, big and bright, no longer tied back with fog. Until Maria fell asleep against her chest, and Carol stayed holding her.

~

She woke up before Maria. She always woke up before Maria. Maria hated mornings, her alarm going off time after time, a warning that she kept ignoring to the very last second, her groans growing louder with every ring. It was a part of their routine. Carol would get up before the dawn itself, do a couple laps round the track, get her breakfast in peace before the crowds began, and still have time to read her book before Maria had even dragged herself our of bed, shooting her with a resentful glare, a frown that would be turned upside down as soon as she got her morning coffee.

But today Carol didn’t want to leave, didn’t know what to do. Part of her didn’t want to untangle herself from Maria, and part of her was scared that the Maria who would wake up would be the same callous one from a few weeks ago, would shoot her with that icy glare and she would be back there again, a swirling black vortex, an alien, all the softness and comfort of the night before forgotten, like a day that promises to be sunny but brings snow instead.

She slowly tried to untangle herself, settling for reading her book in the bunk opposite, not too far, not too close. But as she tried to move, Maria stirred, and Carol found herself staring down at her with a look of worry in her eyes, her whole-body tensing, her stomach swirling like a goddamn orbiter. Exactly like the orbiter Carol had been on at the fair back in ’79, when she’d thrown up seven times and her brother had got her a candyfloss to celebrate. She didn’t feel unlike that now, all that mix of dizzy and sick and pure elation.

Maria’s cheeks blushed bright red, and she sat up, pulling herself away from Carol just a bit.

And Carol knew that was it, she’d been ousted again, her stomach dropping to the bottom of a dark, dark well.

“I’m sorry, I’m leaving,” she said, trying to stop the tears from flowing from her eyes. Maybe Maria had given her some of her tears last night, maybe her hollow self was capable of emotion all over again.

“No,” she said softly, reaching out a hand, “please stay, I’m so sorry,” she looked at her directly, “for everything,”

Carol perched awkwardly at the edge of the bed.

“Do you want to tell me what it’s about?”  she said,

And the dawn was streaking across the horizon, dyeing the sky all shades of red and orange. Carol could hear the first insects waking up, and the early morning hum of the planes being woken up, the first people stirring in their bunks all around them. It was a new dawn, a new day. Maybe something could finally go her way.

Maria took a deep breath, leaning back against the wall, casting her eyes away,

“You don’t have to obviously-“ Carol said at the same time Maria said,

“I’m Pregnant,”

And Carol’s world started to turn on its axis.

~

“It’s Frank’s?” Carol said slowly and Maria nodded and a million futures flashed in front of Carol’s eyes. She saw abandoned planes in seas of dust and a cradle, a tiny family through a window lit by a candle, and Carol was outside, being pulled further and further from the scene inside, and instead of her with her arms around Maria, Frank was there, and he looked up at her with the biggest grin written across his face, and she was pulled back by something unseen from behind, a great unwavering arm clutching at her stomach and legs, leaving dark red marks on her skin, until the house was so small it was just a dot in the distance, and something pulled her into the sand below, down, down, to where she belonged. She was not for this earthly plane, she didn’t have a single corner to call home.

She swallowed.

“I haven’t told him yet,” Maria said softly, and right then Carol could see the small girl she used to be, the one with three older brothers, the baby of the family, all her mother’s hopes and dreams placed upon one baby’s head alongside the holy water, the pillar for her to shine where her mother could not, for her to fly where her mother stayed grounded. She could see her brother’s getting away with being muddy, with being home late, with late homework and low grades, she could see all the weight on one girl’s shoulders as she stared out of the window.

And she saw the fear in Maria’s eyes.

She worked and worked and worked and now a human no bigger than an apple was inside her, and what if that cycle started again, the cycle of sacrifice so her baby could have a better life, and her baby’s sacrifice so their baby could have a better life, a never-ending wheel.

“I’ll be there when you do,” Carol said softly, “if you want me to be,”

And Maria didn’t say anything, but she rested her head against Carol’s chest, and that was answer enough for her.

~

Frank was lay on his bed, tossing a small rubber ball up and down in the air. There was something charming about it, something childish, something wholesome in the way his face lit up when he saw Maria behind the door.

His face fell when he saw Carol.

“What’s going on?” he said, and the air in the room shifted.

He pushed himself up on his elbows and sat at the head of the bed, Maria perched at the edge of the bed, and Carol stood awkwardly at the door, half way in half way out, neither up nor down.

“Hi Carol,” he said slowly, with trepidation, but Carol kept silent.

“I have something to tell you,” Maria began and Carol could see her entire body tense.

~

Frank was silent at first when she told him, shell shocked, like the news was being translated mid-air, like it was reaching his ears in a foreign tongue. He cocked his head like a confused puppy and Carol’s heart ached for the innocence of it all, two people standing at the edge of a very big life, thrown a decision disguised as an apple, thrown an apple-shaped curve ball.

“Well say something,” Maria said, her eyes downcast.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said quietly.

The die had been cast. They could never be uncast. Frank’s lip started to wobble and Carol could see the way the setting sun cast shadows across his face, like a puppet show he never requested, the hands from above pulling at his limbs. He couldn’t look at Maria, but Carol could, Carol could see the way she made herself smaller, until she was as small as that little ball he was throwing up in the air, small enough to be thrown deep, deep into the grass, never to be found again.

Frank was just a boy, but then Maria was just a girl. And somehow that job was always harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the angst!! let me know what you thought!  
> my twitter is waverlysangel and my tumblr is waverlysangels if u wanna follow / talk!  
> have a nice day!

**Author's Note:**

> can you tell I know nothing about the air force lol.  
> Let me know what you think! I should be writing more hopefully!  
> Have a nice day :)


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